Audio 6:47
Has Putin outplayed the West?

Mark ColvinUpdated
Fri 14 Mar 2014, 7:26 PM AEDT

There are growing fears in Ukraine that Vladimir Putin, having effectively annexed Crimea, may be preparing to send the tanks into Eastern Ukraine. They may be exaggerating, no-one's sure, but there is a clear Russian military build-up around Ukraine's borders. Carol Giacomo is a former diplomatic correspondent for Reuters and now sits on the editorial board of the New York Times.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: There are growing fears in Ukraine that Vladimir Putin, having effectively annexed Crimea, may be preparing to send the tanks into Eastern Ukraine.

They may be exaggerating, no-one's sure, but there is a clear Russian military build-up around Ukraine's borders.

It takes the form of tens of thousands of soldiers, hundreds of tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery systems, multiple-launch missile systems, combat aircraft, and naval warships.

Carol Giacomo is a former diplomatic correspondent for Reuters and now sits on the editorial board of the New York Times.

She is in Australia as a guest of Sydney University's US Studies Centre and I asked her about the theory in some quarters that the last few weeks had shown that the Russian president Vladimir Putin had comprehensively outplayed the West.

CAROL GIACOMO: In some ways I suppose you could say that but I'm not convinced that a land grab for Crimea really puts you in the captaincy (phonetic). I mean there have been a couple of things, he clearly saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said he saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as a travesty and has tried to rebuild Russia as a, what he sees as Russian primacy.

There are some moves that he's taken - I mean certainly internally he has been an autocrat and has completely cowed the country but the oligarchy who is his base...

MARK COLVIN: Substitutes for an electorate.

CAROL GIACOMO: Yes and...

MARK COLVIN: Because he doesn't need an electorate.

CAROL GIACOMO: His allies, right, exactly. Or he doesn't want an electorate, won't allow it. They made their money not just in Russia but they've made their money overseas as well. Are they really confident that greater instability in Crimea, isolation from the West, if that's what truly happens and that's certainly what Obama and the Europeans are talking about - greater isolation, greater economic cost - I'm not sure that's going to be to their advantage.

And further on Crimea, you know, in addition to Russia having its own budget problems, its economic problems, Crimea has a budget deficit, it has pension obligations of over $1 billion, somebody's going to have to take care of that. It is dependent on Ukraine for water and electricity. Where's that going to come from?

It's, you know, he's, he's taken on a real maybe a boondoggle.

MARK COLVIN: That last point you made though implies that he may need to move further into mainland Ukraine. If Crimea depends on the mainland for water and electricity then he's going to need to secure that connection isn't he?

CAROL GIACOMO: I don't know. I mean, unless he has some other alternative way of servicing the public.

MARK COLVIN: Do you think that would be an overreach if he tried to push further than Crimea?

CAROL GIACOMO: I wasn't expecting him to get into Crimea frankly. I think it would be an overreach and I think that you'd end up with - I mean Ukrainians, ethnic Ukrainians, are very passionate and there's a great, very strong nationalistic strain and I think that there would be civil war if he tried to do that.

MARK COLVIN: But for the moment it looks as though he's got the whip hand there, at least tactically maybe not strategically, and in Syria. Are you saying that it is only tactically? That in the long term he will done himself more damage.

CAROL GIACOMO: I think so and I think he will have done Russia more damage. I mean you can't argue, I mean he's argued on several different sides here. He's opposed any sort of American or foreign intervention in Syria and yet he's taken over Crimea.

I think for a country - I mean for a long time he was trying, his goal was to try and integrate with the West because he saw that as important to Russia. So a land grab may give him a territorial trump card or what he thinks is a territorial trump card, but what happens, what does it happen or what does it do to Russia in the long term in terms of its ability to sustain itself as a country and have economic integration with the West?

MARK COLVIN: In the mean time, arguably he's succeeding in the aim of making Obama look weak. Is Obama weak in foreign policy or is he strong?

CAROL GIACOMO: I think in some ways he's been very strong. I think it takes a strong leader to be able to make a decision to not go to war in Syria. I mean part of that was his problem, that he drew a red line in terms of chemical weapons in Syria. That was a poor judgment.

But he ginned up the situation, was threatening military action. Only when, only when there was a threat of military action did Putin put this idea of a chemical weapons agreement on the table.

If it turns out in the long term that the Syrians give up all their chemical weapons, that's a good thing. I think it's certainly better than having Americans do air strikes or some sort of military action in Syria and I think it's hard to make those decisions in that situation.

I think that he is showing leadership, trying to get some sort of diplomatic solution in Crimea.

MARK COLVIN: But if Putin pushed further into Ukraine, if Russian tanks moved into Ukraine against resistance, would that trigger a sort of Cuban missile crisis type of moment for Obama and how would he deal with it?

CAROL GIACOMO: I can't tell you how he would deal with it. There have been other Russian leaders who have taken over territory over the years, you know, other people, Czechoslovakia, or what, and American leaders didn't go to war over those land grabs.

MARK COLVIN: Clearly Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

CAROL GIACOMO: Right.

MARK COLVIN: A complete failure by the West to act.

CAROL GIACOMO: Right

MARK COLVIN: Is that what we're going to see again now?

CAROL GIACOMO: Depends on what you say failure to act. I think they're determined to use other tools other than military action - economic sanctions, freeze on assets, things that will hurt people who are close to Putin and who aren't going to like it if their bank accounts in Europe are not accessible to them.

MARK COLVIN: Does Obama have that power though? A lot of people have pointed out that Britain, for instance, looks like it's extremely reluctant to act on some of those things just because so much of their financial sector now depends on Russians.

CAROL GIACOMO: I think, you know, it's a challenge, it's a risk but what's the alternative?